Photo of the Week: Week 45

This weeks post is something that I’ve wanted to try for a long time. HDR or high dynamic range is a method used in photography to allow greater range between dark areas and light areas of a photograph by combining multiple photos with different exposures into a single image. Our eyes have the ability to look at a scene and capture the details in the dark and bright areas at the same time. However, a camera can only capture a scene at a single exposure with a limited contrast range.

By taking multiple photos at different exposures and combining them in specialized software, you can create an image that is representative of the dark and light areas of a scene. The downfall, is that these images are sometimes over-processed and have a painting-type feel to them. I’m still undecided if I like the effect this produces or not.

The image below was a combination of 5 photos ranging in exposure. At one end of the spectrum, everything was nice and clear, and the light above the door was blown out (lost in the highlights). At the other end of the spectrum, the light and door were properly exposed, but the rest of the scene was black.

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4 thoughts on “Photo of the Week: Week 45”

nice image Kevin and black and white suits it. I know the D3100 does not do auto bracketing, so you must have adjusted the exposure compensation manually between each shot. Did you use a timer, or remote with live view? I am also curious as to what software you used for the HDR process?

Hey Dave. You’re right – the D3100 doesn’t have auto bracketing so I took multiple shots of varying exposures and combined them in Photomatrix by HDRSoft. I was using my remote shutter release to take these shots. I wasn’t planning on doing HDR at the time, just trying to get the right exposure, so I took 18 shots in total.

Looks good man. Crisp without being too cartoon-ish. There also seems to be a very subtle zoom-blast kind of motion to it as well (at least for me) – might just be the lines in the brick work on either side of the door. Very cool!